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Haunter (2013) – movie review

Haunter (2013)

This is a different approach to the familiar haunted house movie. In this film of opposites, the living are haunting the dead (kind of). Young teen, Lisa finds herself stuck in a groundhog day scenario, where she wakes up every morning and the same events are repeating. The rest of her family, mom, dad, brother, have no clue, repeating the same words and taking the same actions. Something has awakened Lisa’s senses and she has now become aware. She senses another young female, with similar likes and interests and feels the need to make contact, using a Ouija Board in the attic. Eventually she feels the presence of many entities in the home each trapped in their own loop with no knowledge of the others. However, there’s an additional, much darker presence in the house that needs them to stay ‘asleep’ and unaware of each other.

Some viewers may take issue with the fact that, if they are dead, then why are they scared, and why don‘t they just run through the walls, away from the bad man. I think the film showed that there are aspects to fear, even in death, and that since they are stuck in the home, believing they are alive; they are bound by the realism they have created. This issue is going to depend on your suspension of disbelief, which I had no problem with, once I accepted the parameters.

While not really scary, it is still an interesting story with some tense moments. All the parts were well-acted and it was good to see Abigail Breslin, from the movie Signs, grown up and in another film. I kept expecting her to say, “There’s a monster in my room, can I have a glass of water?” Stephen McHattie plays the sinister spirit role quite well and I hope to see him in more films of the genre. I think there is an untapped talent in him that would excel as the horror genre, bad guy.

Worth the once through for an interesting story, entertaining discovery, and a well-paced plot.

I enjoyed this film. I reviewed it a while back and gave it a favorable write up. Breslin and McHattie were pretty solid in this. Glad Netflix picked it up in case I want to re-visit it again. Good review, Michael!

I’m another that thought it might be alright but the twist on what you might normally expect worked well. It showed the trapped cycle so that it made you feel claustrophobic and I did start to think “if you knew the day was the same, what would you do?”.